


stepping stones

by itisjosh



Series: onlypain [49]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adopted Children, Adoptive Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Angst, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Gifts, Hybrid Wilbur Soot, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Winged Wilbur Soot, Wingfic, Wings, he sees shiny shit and goes AAAAAAAA, phil just goes "ok", wilbur is a crow hybrid lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29259486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itisjosh/pseuds/itisjosh
Summary: Phil's adoptive son is a crow hybrid - it leads to many, many shiny objects being collected.And even more memories.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Series: onlypain [49]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027711
Comments: 46
Kudos: 357





	stepping stones

**Author's Note:**

> alt titles from my friends:  
> \- shiny rocks  
> \- pebble pals  
> \- gravel gang  
> \- boulder buddies (buds)  
> \- refreshing rubble  
> \- brilliant backbone
> 
> based off of that one interaction with wilbur & phil:
> 
> [phil;] "we were on the beach!"  
> [wilbur;] "yeah, crying!"  
> [phil;] "you gave me pebbles?"  
> [wilbur;] "yeah, 'cause you were crying!

Phil walks along the beach, Wilbur's hand in his own. He hears the ocean crash beside them, listening to the wind whistle in his ears as they walk. Wilbur swings their arms up and down, bouncing with every step that he takes, smiling and talking on and on about something he found today. Phil smiles with his son, watching as his wings puff out whenever he gets too excited or into the story, laughing about certain things. Wilbur always manages to find something new to talk about and he'll talk about it for hours on end. Phil is glad that his adopted son feels safe enough around him to do that, but he wonders how the hell he manages to do it. Wilbur rambles on about rocks and gold and some coins he found on the side of the road, before he suddenly gasps. 

"What's the matter?" Phil asks, pausing his movement. "Will?" He frowns, looking at his son, scanning him up and down before he scans the area around them. Phil feels his wings fold out, spreading out for metres, slowly wrapping them around himself and his son. He narrows his eyes sharply, prepared to kill anything that would dare try and hurt his kid, but he sees nothing. Phil carefully unfolds his wings, wondering if it had just been a false alarm. He can't really blame Wilbur if it had been, since he's barely even six, if that. Phil doesn't know for sure - he found Wilbur on the side of the road, completely abandoned. How old Wilbur was didn't really come up when Phil was trying to help him find the parents that left him for dead.

"Dad, look!" Wilbur drops to his knees, picking up a small, rounded pebble. It's black with an orange streak in the middle, shining and glossed over by the ocean. "Phil, isn't it pretty? It's so pretty, look, look at it!" Wilbur beams, hopping back up to his feet, bouncing on his heels. "Here," Wilbur reaches for his hand, forcing Phil's hand upwards, palm to the sky. He puts the pebble in the middle of his palm, closing Phil's fingers over it. "For you! Do you like it, Phil?" Wilbur asks, his eyes huge. He always gets that look on his face and in his eyes whenever he finds something that he likes. Specifically shiny and bright things. 

Phil smiles at his son, carefully tucking away the stone into his pocket. "I love it, Will. Thank you," he reaches out, smoothing down one of Wilbur's feathers that's been stuck upwards for a few minutes. "Are you sure that you don't want to keep that one?" Phil asks, tilting his head to the side as they start to walk again. "I know that you really like these sorts of rocks. You're positive you want me to have it, Wilbur?" Wilbur grins up at him, locking their arms together again. 

"'Course I do!" Wilbur skips, kicking up sand and rocks as he does. "You looked kind of sad, so I figured that I'd give you something to make you feel better!" Wilbur tells him. "Are you okay, Phil? Do you wanna talk about it?" Phil laughs, ducking his head at the words. They're unbelievably similar to what he says to Wilbur, and he can't believe that his son has picked up on it. Though, as he thinks about it, he realises that he's not all that surprised. Wilbur has such a big heart, he's such a good kid. Phil does't know how he got lucky enough to have a son with a heart of gold. He's so caring and kind, Phil doesn't know how the world hasn't stomped that out of him. "Phil?"

"I'm okay," Phil promises him. "I was just thinking," he looks down, smiling when a glittering stone catches his eye. He crouches down, picking up the golden and white piece of quartz. Wilbur's eyes light up at the sight of it, his entire body going still for a second before he starts to bounce on his feet again. "Hold out your hand," Phil murmurs, and Wilbur does, shooting out both hands, grinning like a madman. Phil puts the piece of quartz in his son's hands, watching as Wilbur grins and continues to hop on his feet. "There you go. Do you like it?" 

Wilbur grins at him so brightly that Phil thinks it could rival the sun. "Thank you, Phil! I do, I really like it!" He holds it up, and Phil winces when it catches the sun, shining directly back into his eyes. "Look, look at it, Phil! It sparkles, it shines! It's so shiny!" Wilbur laughs, running a finger down the piece of quartz. "It's so pretty! Thank you! You didn't have to do that, it's okay for me to give you gifts without wanting something back," he son tells him. "I don't mind. But, thank you, dad, thank you! I really like it, it's super cool and pretty and it reflects, look at it! It does the thing, it does the little- the- the glittery thing, you know? You know what I mean?" 

"I do," Phil laughs, reaching out to ruffle his son's hair. Wilbur preens up into the touch, humming softly. He bounces on his heels even more as he skips in the sand and rocks, looking happier than Phil has seen him in a long time. It's been far too long since he's seen Wilbur happy and smiling as freely as he is now. Phil knows that it took him a long time to get used to him, that it took Wilbur even longer trust him, but he's happy that all of his work and persistence paid off. "Do you want to look for more rocks, Will? There are a bunch around, I'm sure we could find a few perfect ones." 

"Really?" Wilbur asks, his eyes shining. "You- you wanna rock hunt with me?" He looks so hopeful, so full of light and love and everything good in the world. Even if Phil didn't want to, he wouldn't be able to say no. He couldn't crush the hope in his son. Phil smiles, crouching down to the ground. "I- I really like the golden ones, the ones that sparkle, too! The shiny ones, you know? Like coins and gold and little flecks of.." Wilbur pauses, tilting his head to the side. "Mica. Right?"

"That's the word," Phil agrees. He picks up a few bland rocks, just dull and grey, and moves them to the side. He thinks that if he were to fly over this entire beach he'd have a better time of finding something shiny for his son, but he doesn't want to leave Wilbur alone. Wilbur's wings are still a little too small for him to get off the ground and stay in the air, and until he's able to fly with Phil, Phil isn't going to leave him. "I really like the ones with patterns," Phil tells him, running his finger over a white rock with grey spots around it. He knows that Wilbur really likes to give him gifts, and most of the time, they're in the form of pebbles or coins or pieces of metal. Anything shiny, really, is what he's given. "Oh, look at this one!" Phil beams, picking up a piece of rose quartz, holding it up to the sun. 

Wilbur, once again, is entirely entranced by the simplicity of the rock. Phil puts it in his son's hands, watching as he immediately holds it up like Phil did, staring at it with a bright grin on his face. "It's so pretty!" Wilbur beams, setting it on a pile that he's already started to make. "Are we gonna take all of these home?" He asks, sounding far too hopeful. Phil raises an eyebrow, knowing damn well that that's Wilbur's guilt-tripping voice. "Please?" Wilbur asks, leaning forwards, his eyes sparkling. "It'd make me sad if we didn't."

Phil laughs, gently shoving his son back. "You're a little shit, you know that?" He grins, moving a few more rocks. "You can take them all home, but you have to keep them out of the house. We'll make a little rock garden, how's that sound?" 

"Can I keep a few in the house?" Wilbur asks. "Only the really pretty ones! I don't want those to get dirty." Phil sighs, but he nods his head, figuring that he can trust his kid enough to not bring in hundreds of rocks and leave them littered around the floor. Though Wilbur's absolutely terrible at hiding things for Phil to find. Phil still remembers flipping over his pillow once and seeing ten little coins sat underneath of it. And the rocks that he found on his windowsill. And also the piece of metal that was slipped into his nightstand. Phil loves Wilbur, he really does, but if he didn't know better, he'd think that Wilbur was trying to kill him. 

"Fine," Phil smiles, picking up another rock, flipping it in his hands. "You promise?" He asks, raising an eyebrow at him. "You have to promise me that you won't bring two hundred rocks into the house. Can you do that for me, Will?"

Wilbur grins at him, so brightly that he rivals the sun. "I promise! I'll just bring in the really pretty ones, I swear," he promises. Phil smiles, even though he thinks that making Wilbur promise was useless. His son is half-crow, he's a corvid hybrid. He's got a hoarding habit and he loves everything that's shiny, and Phil knows better than to think for a second that Wilbur won't bring in his piles of rocks. It's a nice sentiment, though. "Oh, look, look at this one!" Wilbur holds up a piece of topaz, grinning from ear to ear. "What's this one called?" 

"Topaz," Phil tells him, letting Wilbur put it in his hands. "Is this for my pile or for yours?" Wilbur beams. 

"For yours!"

Phil beams back at his son, setting the piece of topaz on the top of his pile. "Thank you, Will," he picks up a piece of mica, smooth and nearly clear, and offers it to his son. "This is mica. There are sheets of it sometimes, if you go to special places," Phil thinks back to the end, where one of the abandoned cities was _covered_ in the black sheets. Every step he took echoed around him, glass and mica shattering underneath his feet. "Maybe I'll bring back some when I go adventuring again." Wilbur grins, setting the piece of mica down onto his pile. 

"I'd like to go adventuring with you," Wilbur tells him. "I think that I'd be really good at adventuring! 'Cause when I'm older, I'll be able to fly, right? And if I can fly, then we don't even have to walk anywhere, we can just fly!" Wilbur grins, tapping his hands on the ground out of excitement. "Wouldn't that be cool, Phil?"

"That would be cool," Phil agrees, smiling. "When you're older, I'll take you on my adventures. Promise. Now," Phil stands up, scooping his rock pile into a little purse he keeps on him at all times. "How about we go home, and you can help me make dinner?" Wilbur scrambles to grab all of his rocks, shoving them in his pockets with a grin and a laugh and a skip in his step as he starts to run off towards their house. Phil laughs, racing after his son, wondering how he got so lucky.

* * *

"What're you up to?" Phil asks, landing next to Wilbur, who's sat there with a small rock pile in front of him. They're teetering back and forth, dangerously close to collapsing. "Will? You okay?" Wilbur blinks, shaking his head as if he had been lost in thought. He probably was, Phil thinks. He knows that Wilbur normally comes out here to get away from everything that's going on in the house and in their world, but he's always been observant. It's odd, Phil thinks, that he didn't hear him land. Wilbur sighs, looking up to Phil with a tired smile. "I'm gonna take that as a no," Phil moves to sit down next to him, dragging a leg up to his chest. "What's up?"

Wilbur sighs again, absentmindedly putting rocks on top of each other, making new piles. "I don't know," he admits. "I just feel sort of..sad. I know that you're always busy trying to raise Tommy, and Techno's never really around so you want to spend time with him when he _is_ around," Wilbur murmurs. "I just..kind of miss it when it was just you and I. Which is stupid," Wilbur sighs. "It's really stupid, and I don't mean it- I don't mean, like, getting rid of Tommy, or- or-"

"Oh, mate," Phil reaches out, wrapping an arm around Wilbur's shoulders. His son moves into the hug, resting his head against Phil's shoulder. "I get that, it was the same for me a long time ago, with my siblings. I'm sorry, Will. How about this, how about we start going on walks again, like we used to when you were, like, two inches tall," Phil grins at the way Wilbur laughs, shoving him back. Wilbur has always been so strong, he's never let that hope inside of him burn out. It's easy to not worry about someone when they make it impossible to do so. "Just you and I, we can fuckin', collect rocks." 

Phil laughs when Wilbur does, watching as his son stands up, offering him a hand. Wilbur knocks over the rock piles with his wings when they spread out, and Phil can't help but smile. He's really grown into them. They're gorgeous, spanning out almost as much as Phil's, but not quite. Wilbur is proud of them, he has to be. "Well, old man," Wilbur teases, flapping his wings as he starts to soar into the sky. "Are you gonna catch up with me or what?" And then he's gone, barreling so far up into the sky that Phil barely can see him anymore.

"Oh, you little fucker," Phil grins, launching himself up into the air as he chases after Wilbur, twirling as he flies. "Come here, dipshit!" Phil laughs, watching Wilbur come into view. He stops before he crashes into his son, hovering in the air. Wilbur grins at him. "Why the hell are you looking at me like that? What are you _planning_ , Will?" 

Wilbur reaches in his pocket, holding up a piece of rose quartz. "Wanna go rock hunting with me, old man?"

Phil grins. "You're on, you little chaos child." 

Wilbur tries to fly away from him, but he's not nearly fast enough. Phil laughs when his son tries to outfly him, and Phil just soars ahead, leaving Wilbur far, far behind. "Get fucked!" Phil cackles as Wilbur tries his best to catch up. "Get absolutely fucked!" Wilbur grins, rolling his eyes as he manages to finally catch up. 

"Whatever, Phil. Before you know it, I'm gonna be putting you in the home, and you'll be apologising to _me_." Phil snorts, watching as Wilbur's eyes light up at the sight of something sparkling below them.

"Whatever you say, Will. Whatever you say."

* * *

Phil walks along the beach, the silence ringing in his ears. He never thought it was possible for this place to be quiet, but it seems like he was wrong. He watches as the water crashes on the rocky beach, dragging sand and smooth rocks back into the ocean. It's pretty. It's still gorgeous, even after all these years. It's one of those places that never loses its charm, its beauty. Phil glances down at the sand and at the rocks, feeling his chest squeeze when he sees a small rock pile. There are dull rocks at the bottom, and at the very top is a small rose quartz, shining in the sun.

He feels his heart shatter into pieces, he feels tears pricking at his eyes. That stupid piece of rose quartz just mocks him, glinting when it catches the sun's rays, shining proudly and undefeated. It sits on the top of that pile and it doesn't move, it just shines right up at him. Phil crouches down, picking up the rose quartz, running his fingers along the smooth front of it, moving them to feel the rough sides. It's muddy and worn down, sand sticking to it from the last time it rained. 

Phil stands back up, placing the rose quartz in his pocket, gently tucking it away from the harshness of the outside world. He looks towards the beach where he used to sit with Wilbur, and all he can see are rock piles. They litter the beach, scattered around at every possible location. Every single one of them has a shiny rock or a few coins or a piece of metal at the top of them, and all of them glint in the sunlight. Phil swallows, blinking back tears as he starts to walk again. He hears the ocean crash against the beach, and he feels like the entire world has fallen on his back, crushing him below it. He feels like he's suffocating.

"I got your gift," Phil pauses, staring out at the ocean. He outstretches his wings, though they're burnt and broken and irreparable. He raises one up as if he was waving it, staring at the sunrise. "I got your gift, Will," he laughs, feeling tears stream down his face. Phil reaches into his pocket, pulling out a little coin purse that he's kept on him for forever. He pulls out a black rock with an orange streak in the middle, setting it on top of the rock pile to replace the rose quartz. "There," Phil smiles. "For your pile."

Phil turns away, leaving the ocean and the rock pile behind him. 

And along with leaving the memories behind, he leaves his last gift for his son. 


End file.
